Nintendo Has A New Patent For An HMD Capable of VR And Mixed Reality

There is a blockbuster new patent that’s come out from Nintendo, and you might want this even more than the Switch 2.

For this, we credit YouTuber Mike Odyssey, who broke down the details of the patent in his video. We independently verified the patent and downloaded a copy from the US patent office’s website, so we can assure you we aren’t just taking his word on it. We can’t directly link to the patent, because of the way the website works, but you can search for it yourself.

But the image we chose for this article doesn’t leave a lot of room for doubt. We are definitely looking at a patent for a head mounted display. While it may resemble the cardboard setup of Labo VR, the image does not depict the shape of the final device. It simply illustrates the technology being patented.

Nintendo’s patent describes a particular form of motion tracking, that as you may imagine, seems sufficiently unique enough that it would be considered different from what is found in other VR devices in the market today, such as the Apple Vision Pro, Meta Quest 3, or PSVR 2.

As Mike describes it, the patent makes it possible for certain display elements to stay in your field of view, even if you move your head. It seems that there is also an augmented reality sensor that can allow you to view your room. So, this setup seems to enable not only VR, but AR and mixed reality.

The most interesting aspect of this is that the HMD apparently has its own CPU and GPU. So it’s closer conceptually to the Apple Vision Pro than the PSVR 2. Unlike Sony’s latest VR offering, Nintendo’s HMD won’t have to be connected to the Switch or Switch 2 to work.

There’s so many things to be said about this patent, but we’ll focus on the big one; would Nintendo even move forward with this thing? We had reported on how the limited market reach of VR and mixed reality has dampened the enthusiasm for the technology, and its potential for creating an all-encompassing metaverse.

Apple has cut their expectations on the aforementioned Apple Vision Pro, and we know Sony also saw flat sales for PSVR 2. After 12 years, Palmer Luckey can say that he successfully brought back VR as a consumer product, but it seems to have squarely fit onto a niche high income, tech savvy market. And that market is now stifled by the effects of global inflation.

It would be bold for Nintendo to also bet on their own VR or mixed reality headset, seeing where the market is now. Nintendo did popularize out of the box ideas that originated in VR, like motion control with the Wii, but they also faced setbacks here, such as when they failed to push mass adoption of stereoscopic 3D on the 3DS.

So if Nintendo brought this to the market, they would be returning to taking risks again. Even if it isn’t quite a blue ocean strategy, it would mean they aren’t just playing it safe in the future.

You can watch Mike Odyssey’s video on this patent below.